A Club Worth not Joining 

April 9, 2006
The New York Post
Original Source: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/64186.htm

April 9, 2006 -- The Bush administration has de cided that the United States won't seek a seat on the United Nations' new Human Rights Council. 
That's a right smart move. 
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton says he wanted first to see what other countries present themselves for membership. Well, that answer is in. 
Among the nations likely to win election are such noted bastions of human rights as Cuba and Iran. 
Of course, the fact that the old U.N. Human Rights Commission routinely included such regimes is why the world body voted to abolish it in the first case. The new Human Rights Council was said to be the centerpiece of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's reform process. 
Some reform. As the old saw goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. 
Indeed, Bolton pegged it exactly right when he described the change as a case of putting lipstick on a caterpillar and calling it a butterfly. 
Incredibly, the Bush-bashing crowd seems to think that the president deserves the blame for its decision. 
Rep. Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, accused Bush of doing violence to the legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt, who spearheaded creation of the original Human Rights Commission back in 1945. 
Oh, please. 
America's commitment to promoting human rights worldwide has not been compromised one iota by this decision. How any member of Congress thinks that any council, or commission, or whatever you want to call it that includes Cuba and Iran and other such rogue states can possibly promote human rights is beyond us.